DFI with the support of its members had been the premier defence, stratrgic and Geo political forum with politics of India too being discussed in depth.

India is growing economically and militarily. India has always lacked the security culture as we have said on our forum and lack of strategic thinkers. Well over the last few years a lot has changed and many people have come forward and contributed their ideas and thoughts to further Indian interests globally. Some are known and respected figures.

DFI has it share of such thinkers and so we are now making an attempt to position ourselves into a think tank for the future. We want members from DFI and across India and the world who have a keen interest and critical ability in the field of Defence, Strategic Affairs, Geopolitics, Economy and politics which influence India's role in the comity of nations and furthers it's interests.

We call on members here and others among our guests and also members who have friends who can write on such topics to become part of IDSA and contribute towards the future of India.

I am reminded about a mail written by Ritesh some time back when we were discussing about how to take DFI forward. It was an idea way above anyone's thinking here. Well it also involved a capital expense of 20-25 Lacs (not kidding). It required corporatization if you will and obviously investments. But then things went awry during the end of last year. This is also where allegations of admin role for sale and share of profits came up not knowing the true intention.

But then the market is low and investments cannot be made. Running DFI itself costs a lot. So what we have now implemented is something that we can start with without a lot of investment. Our investment is our time and effort along with that of participating authors. What we want is DFI members here, guests and also urge our member to invite people they know who can write on such matters over here.

IDSA will be the platform where they can let their voices heard. As we grow and as the time demands, we will try to make it even bigger and with investments if need be.

Over the years, we have used many articles from different sources to start discussions on DFI. What we are attempting here is to BE THAT SOURCE for discussion on other forums or anywhere so that our authors get to be heard far and wide. We create an image for ourselves of being people with some of the best talents when it comes to strategic affairs. Off course, our content will be the copyright of IDSA but open for all to use with a link to the original article here on IDSA. All topics on IDSA will have a thread on DFI to discuss.

All those who want to be part of IDSA dont even require to be members of DFI (though we would love them to). While we sort out everything and create a page for authors to sign up on IDSA only to write, people can mail (or PM Singh, LB or me if you are member of DFI) any original article for publication on IDSA along with your name or pseudonym if they dont want their name to be out. However i would recommend people to use their original name to lend more credibility. We will publish on IDSA along with the name.

The staff of DFI hopes to get the support of all members and budding writers to make IDSA a huge success.

Adding: all articles STRICTLY have to be original with no plagiarism whatsoever. We will bar anyone from writing on IDSA if there is any article that is copied.
Writers can provide sources of research if need be if they are referencing any.

Please do not confuse this with the other IDSA (Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses) which is an established, autonomous think tank based in India.
I hope one day we stand in that league or even higher .. cheers !!

Articles to add credibility have to have quotes from published material to substantiate their point. To avoid plagiarism, one must give footnotes or a Bibliography.

Click to expand...

Agreed Sir
Also in my opinion though quotations/citations could be there; the analysis has to be original rather than a lift off somewhere else.
A knowledgful message must sprout out which usually happens when we research and digest some data very well and organize our thoughts out.
That is contrary to the literal reporter work many of us do by pasting news articles and blog posts.
What Yusuf is talking about will take this place to a whole new level. It is not easy I must say but a wonderful challenge indeed.

A request to all before we can post / write articles of a higher caliber i humbly request members to write articles for newbies like me where we can learn about the basics about the whole situation. For example: the article about MMRCA written by p2prada was an excellent effort, helped me understand the whole scenario, similar articles to be written about Tanks (Arjun MBT in particular) where a member can learn its workings, terms like bore of the gun, difference between 105 mm and 155 mm, the pros and cons, ERA tiles, HESH.

Similarly articles pertaining to Navy, the various types of Frigates, Destroyers, Corvettes, Subs (its own sub heads HDW, Nuclear, etc.) their differences including pros and cons.

This would help on two fronts:

1) We will able to educate the general public / Newbies (catch them young and they shall stay with the forum)
2) This would in turn help us improve the quality of discussion on the forum

A request to all before we can post / write articles of a higher caliber i humbly request members to write articles for newbies like me where we can learn about the basics about the whole situation. For example: the article about MMRCA written by p2prada was an excellent effort, helped me understand the whole scenario, similar articles to be written about Tanks (Arjun MBT in particular) where a member can learn its workings, terms like bore of the gun, difference between 105 mm and 155 mm, the pros and cons, ERA tiles, HESH.

Similarly articles pertaining to Navy, the various types of Frigates, Destroyers, Corvettes, Subs (its own sub heads HDW, Nuclear, etc.) their differences including pros and cons.

This would help on two fronts:

1) We will able to educate the general public / Newbies (catch them young and they shall stay with the forum)
2) This would in turn help us improve the quality of discussion on the forum

I hope i was able to get my point across

Click to expand...

What you are looking for will NOT be part of the new initiative. What you are looking for will only be part of the forum. We are looking for only strategic or defence analysis which can be referenced by anyone on the world wide web.

Agreed Sir
Also in my opinion though quotations/citations could be there; the analysis has to be original rather than a lift off somewhere else.
A knowledgful message must sprout out which usually happens when we research and digest some data very well and organize our thoughts out.
That is contrary to the literal reporter work many of us do by pasting news articles and blog posts.
What Yusuf is talking about will take this place to a whole new level. It is not easy I must say but a wonderful challenge indeed.

Regards,
Virendra

Click to expand...

You are right.

I happen to be a published chap!

For instance if I were to write on the confusion in the BJP, I could not invent it.

I would have to draw on published sources and give my opinion (which would be the basis of the article).

That the contentions are valid and have been drawn from public sources would have to be acknowledged as footnotes.

We have many hot threads on DFI during the course of the a week or fortnight. Depending on your point of view, you can draw ideas from many of the posts in those threads and come up with a worthy article combining them with your thoughts.

It cannot be a straight copy paste. And yes you can credit someone if there was something really inspirational on the forum that helped you write your article.

Guys, within a very short time, our main page which concentrates on quality original articles has found very high viewership and following which can be gauged from the fact that while the forum page which is far older is at pagerank 3 while our very recent Indian Defence Analysis page is at pagerank 4. We have had good number of sites linking in on the page which has made this possible. This despite the lesser frequency of articles on it. But the quality more than makes up.

We once again take this opportunity to thank the contributors on the IDA page and also take this opportunity to encourage more members to seriously contribute on the page www.defenceforumindia.com